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Forsaken Virtues in Community Management - Part III

Apparently a poor guy got his name changed again into something ridiculous and his mate made a post on the official forums...

"Debbie does Sota"... that name apparently offended a little snowflake and he got reported, and Community Management had to put the offender in line again! WELL DONE.

Of course the guy can come up with a dozen names that also could be seen in a "dirty" context, but aren't "moderated".

The official forum moderation has become arbitrary a long time ago. But what is new is that this poor guy has to pay 25$ apparently to get a new name, if he does not like the one they assigned to him.

Does it suprise you?

Imagine this guy telling other people what happened to him...
Imagine the effect this has on public relations...

Portalarium is in a bubble of "we make no mistakes" and it is all legitimate, because their motives are good. But they don't realize that people will react if treated unfair. The rules they put up are impossible to enforce equally on all...

But I am also at a point where I start to think it is all intentionally...

Anyhow...

It already enabled groups of report happy wusses to push people out of the community.

Forcing people a 25$ name change, for a name that is not openly offensive is just another BS moment in the ongoing chain of fails in Portalarium's public relations.

#NotMyCommunityManagement... definetly.

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Comments

This is one of the most egregious and unconscionable things Portaterrible has done in awhile. SotA the frickin' "nanny-state" of wet noodle, snowballs who get offended by any little thing and report other players. So glad I dumped this turd ferguson ages ago.

Little known fact, in Berek's many years as a forum moderator he's also been an activist for gay, lesbian, and LGBT gamer communities. Not a big deal until you consider the potential for his personal politics being injected into how he moderates and shapes the SotA community. SotA is not just a gay, lesbian, or LGBT community! It's not a reach to think that some of his activism could be spilling over into his community management practices and it shows in how he mother hens and constantly censors.

I don't really think its relevant that he's been an activist for LGBT gamer communities. Its perfectly fair for him to come to the job from a certain background, even if it gives him a different perspective than some of the other backers and forum members. After all, as players, we're all encouraged to have our own different views on the virtues and to use creative expression within the game to discuss them and other issues of social relevance.

The problem comes if players feel that despite this encouragement, Portalarium is still trying to control the discussion. Because that will make them seem like hypocrites, and will cause a lot of bitterness.

So, in my view, Portalarium has to use as light a hand as possible in moderation and try to stay neutral and unbiased. Unfortunately, there have been a few instances where there has been needless political bias injected into community management.

Its bad, not just in general, but for the health of the game in the long run, and its something that Port has to think about and pay more attention to.

Dunno if being gay has something to do with it...Being an activist maybe has. They tend to do stuff to feel themselves as better people, and the result of their action come behind that usually.

I read some of the stuff he posted on his personal page, and I think a lot of the thoughts he puts out there show where he is coming from. He wants all conflict abolished, but what he fails to see is that only conflict and overcoming those can create new things and built friendships, rather than avoiding conflict and segregating people from each other. History and the universe itself is proof of that.

Life isn't perfect.. There is a lot of randomness we cannot control. Key to happiness and success is to accept that. Everyone who tries to put up total control, will ultimately fail... Of course we need rules, but they need to take into account the 'human factor'. Not everyone is perfect, and there is no way in the world to make everyone happy and never feel offended. So the way they are setup in their forums is way out of bounce of reality.

I don't think Berek is a SJW NAZI blaming cishet white males for everything etc... but I can see why some might think that, and have put Portalarium into the same category.

I know though that not all of them agree 100% on the way they handle things in their official forums. Talking to the people often clears a lot of those conspiracy theories ;)

P.s. I highly suggest you spend some hours to read through IMs many blog posts (especially those about moderation) and then consider what happened to most of us who were banned and then found some kindred spirits on SU.

Despite how envy unfairly categorized IM and us as morons and worse, we were actually discussing and decrying all of the things you're now writing about YEARS ago...

It gets so much better; it turns out that they went back and changed the FAQ on renaming to state yes, it'll cost you $25 if you don't like the name they give you... but they didn't change the edit date, so it's back dated now to August 2016.

Anyone who had their name changed but hadn't got around to getting a replacement then can be retro-actively charged for it then.

Last night I put up a thread detailing how, for the last 5 months at least, someone has tried to constantly hack my email address, as well as apparently getting into someone else's Reddit/Shroud/Steam accounts.

I detailed the police report I made about it, the evidence I had... and that I'd notified both the UK police and Berek at Shroud that I was naming the harassment here and on their forums as the reason I suspected it was connected to their game. I kept quiet for a while as I was waiting to see if the person who was actually doing it would slip up, and I didn't want to slander the innocent.

Unfortunately, the police couldn't get enough information to prosecute, so in the meantime, I was also dropping little hints to accounts I couldn't be certain were further alts of Jammaplaya to see if I could get him to reveal himself on others... I give evidence that in doing so, it became obvious quite a few of the supposedly decent backers appeared to be at the very least working together, or completely unconcerned with organised harassment, even if it's not tied to email hacking.

This is what has been happening behind the scenes; make sure your wider accounts don't share a password with Shrouds, and be aware of just how toxic the community has become.

Well let me explain it to you shortly:
The Developer of Shroud of the Avatar thought it was a good idea to embrace deeds done by members of their game's community, by honoring them. Inspired by the knightly Order of the British Empire they invented the Order of New Britannian Empire.

While it sounds like a good idea on paper, you will soon realize why it might not be a good idea once it hits reality. But first let's read what it is all about en detail: